Starting Humira Today

orlanemo

I'm starting Humira today, waiting on the nurse to come out to my house actually. I have ulcerative colitis, but I would really like to hear people experiences with it for any illness. Bricking it a little, I have taken reactions to other meds - so fingers crossed this one will be okay

Orla

orlanemo

Okay,

So the Nurse arrived the other day and went through everything with me. She showed me the practice pen and we played about with that for awhile. I was to have 80mg, so two pens. The normal is 4 pens the first time, but with my history I suppose they decided to take it easy on the dosage.

Well I was bricking it a little for two reasons; firstly I have had bad reactions to meds before and secondly, I was freaking out over injecting myself. God you would think with all the hospital admittances that this would come easy to me, but no I was freaking. My dad has diabetes and is always trying to get me to check my bloods, but i wont even do the finger prick The thing is I don't mind when they take stuff out - its when they inject things in that freaks me. When i was in hospital in December the line-in was giving me nausea and then every night they were giving me an injection to stop blood clots. I couldn't get out of that place quick enough.

So I took the first pen out of the package held it up to the skin and nothing...
I just kept holding it there... The nurse kept rubbing my shoulder telling me it was normal to be apprehensive. I must have been like that for about 20 minutes! Had to get up and go for a walk, drink a glass of water, wipe the sweat from my hands! Seriously - I know I'm I wimp She even offered to do the first one for me. That strengthened my resolve so somehow I did it! And it wasn't that bad, my tummy muscle had a mild stingy feeling afterwards. The worst part was the gurgly noise it made as it finished. Did not like that

So I chilled out for a bit after the nurse left, but I got really tired. Brought the house phone into bed with me and it rang and i didnt even wake for it. Right beside my head! Only weird thing has been a kind of heart racing feeling at night that has been keeping me from sleeping properly. But that could be from anything, like the moon being in a new quadrant or something like that :P

So all in all so far so good... Going to have to get a bit obsessive with hand washing and spurning friends with mild sniffles. Oh yeah I am prone to Kidney infections so the Nurse said that other patients with a history of these said that "health food shop cranberry juice" works better than own brand stuff from the supermarket. Good to know..

Orla

diskodolly

Hey orla im also starting on humira, waitng for the nurse to contact me, my IBD nurse sent it off on monday and said the nurse would ring me in a day or 2 but have heard nothing !!! i mite ring my IBD nurse 2morro and ask her advise,

thats mad that it made you so tired maybe you didnt sleep that nite cause you had a sleep during the day how are you goin now,
dying to know before i start. not 2 keen on injecting any thing into my tummy i think ill be going into the thigh !!!!!!!!

a nurse gave me a bllod thinning injection once in my tummy and i screamed, into the top of my arm after that !!!!!:eek:

orlanemo

diskodolly wrote: »

Hey orla im also starting on humira, waitng for the nurse to contact me, my IBD nurse sent it off on monday and said the nurse would ring me in a day or 2 but have heard nothing !!! i mite ring my IBD nurse 2morro and ask her advise,

thats mad that it made you so tired maybe you didnt sleep that nite cause you had a sleep during the day how are you goin now,
dying to know before i start. not 2 keen on injecting any thing into my tummy i think ill be going into the thigh !!!!!!!!

a nurse gave me a bllod thinning injection once in my tummy and i screamed, into the top of my arm after that !!!!!:eek:

Hey D,
I had my Chest X-ray in December, the Man-2, colonoscopy, and immunology bloods done in early Jan. There was some problem at the Lab where they did the immunology so didn't get the all clear to start till late last week. Tbh even though I should have been chasing it up I was happy with the delay. So freaked out over the self-injecting.

By the sounds of it they will probably be out to you before mid week next week. The nurse said that cause im a little on the skinny side that the thigh would be hard to do. Give the Tummy a go if you can. Did not even feel the needle going in (unlike that blood thinning injection, yuck.)

I have one of those brains that think the best time to start pondering the imponderables should be in the middle of the night. I find exercise is great for sorting that out but can't do much at the mo

I suppose the worst of the injection is over now. The wait now is to see how my immune system holds up. My mam is on Humira too for Arthritis. She gets a lot of sniffles. She is onto her 6 dose this week and she has started to feel a reduction in her symptoms. The nurse said because I am not on steroids that it may take longer to work for me.

Tell me how you get on

Orla

diskodolly

hey orla had my first dose of humira last thurs, had to have 2 injections and i did them both myself, which im glad cause it hurt for a few seconds and if she had done it i would have been dreading doing it. so the 2 went in fine think ill try my thigh next time, your tummy wouldnt long be getting sore.

felf grand after, have had a few episodes of crampy tummy but didnt last long i wonder how long it will take if its going to work on getting rid of your symptoms.

how are you getting on ????

twistedsoul

hey people i use humira for psoriasis the injections get easier as u go along less soreness etc.. good look with the treatment :cool:

orlanemo

diskodolly wrote: »

hey orla had my first dose of humira last thurs, had to have 2 injections and i did them both myself, which im glad cause it hurt for a few seconds and if she had done it i would have been dreading doing it. so the 2 went in fine think ill try my thigh next time, your tummy wouldnt long be getting sore.

felf grand after, have had a few episodes of crampy tummy but didnt last long i wonder how long it will take if its going to work on getting rid of your symptoms.

how are you getting on ????

Hey DoD
How are you? Been trying to formulate an answer but the last few weeks I have not been up to much. Suffering from very laboured breathing but have appointment with the doc on the 10th. Hopefully things will be sorted by then. Looking forward to an improvement though.

My Mam is on Humira and feeling great after 3 months on it for arthritis. I am waiting for the time when i can dance again (**** when I can walk again). Christ I am so upbeat on this but at times it can be hard. Last Thursday I went for a really short walk and had to lie down for ALL of friday. It took till monday to do the dishes - is that bad?

Thanks for the support - it means a lot to me,
Orla

BrigR

Best wishes! Waiting and anticipating, trying to do things that you can't do YET. It can be so frustrating, but hopefully you'll feel the positive effects soon. It worked for your mum, didn't it? Don't worry about dishes and the likes, you're more important.
Brigitte

gustavo

Been taking Humira for 5 months now for Ankylosing Spondylitis and Psoriatic Arthritis

I find I'm still stiff enough but I don't have as much pain at night or when trying to stand up from a chair/bed ,However this happened pretty much after a couple of weeks so theres been no improvement since.

Psoriasis has stopped scaling pretty much straight away but the red patches are still there , Does anyone know if these will go away or not?